Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Highland Rim Classic – Day 1

Sometimes it’s more about the adventure than the race (although the race was really good, too). Today was a day like that – from the long drive on beautiful country roads to the climb that I wanted to do on my warm-up taking a bit longer than expected leaving me less than 5 minutes to refill water bottles and shoot over to the line before the start. So, I’ve included some pictures and video from the drive up and the festivities surrounding the race.

About the race – Chris Brown (Litespeed-BMW) took the win solo lapping the field along the way, and I came out on the losing end of a photo finish sprint for 2nd place to a very strong 16 year old – Stephen Bassett (Texas Roadhouse). I missed Chris’s move and spent a few laps chasing just a couple seconds behind him but I couldn’t close the gap and nearly blew up in the process. I eventually sat up and waited for the field. In the end game, there were five of us left to sprint it out. I attacked hard going into the next to last turn and held it until the finish … well, exactly two inches before the finish.

I hit an all-time new record max HR of 199 in the final sprint … here is all the data: